The European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) is the basis for assigning seismic intensities in European countries. The European Macroseismic Scale has been most recently updated in 1998 and is referred to as EMS

The history of the EMS began in 1988 when the later Editor of the EMS-98 suggested to initiate a special international working group in the framework of the European Seismological Commission (ESC) to review and update the Medvedev-Sponheuer-Kárník-Scale (MSK-64), which was used in its basic form in Europe for almost a quarter of a century. The ESC accepted the proposal to establish such a WG and has decided that the WG should develop a scale up-date on behalf of the ESC. After more than five years of intensive research and development and a three-year testing period, the new scale was born. In 1996 the XXV General Assembly of the ESC in Reykjavik passed a resolution recommending the adoption of the new scale by the member countries of the European Seismological Commission..

DThe MSK-64 scale, which itself is an update is based on the experiences which were available in the early 1960s from the application of the Mercalli-Cancani-Sieberg Scale (MCS) from Sieberg (1932), the Modified Mercalli scale in its version from 1931 and 1956 (MM-31 and MM-56) and the Medvedev scale from 1953.

One of the main intentions for the creation of the new scale was not to change the internal consistency of the scale with respect to the widely used twelve degree scales. This would result in intensity evaluations which would be different from earlier applications of 12-degree scales and which would require a reclassification of all earlier intensity assessments. This should be avoided at all costs. It would result in a complete confusion in all studies on seismicity and seismic hazard which depend heavily on macroseismic data.